1) Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Now EAL 4+

The Common Criteria Certification process is a long and arduous one. Common Criteria provides Evaluation Assurance Level that is the standard that U.S. Government and other large enterprises use as the basis of software qualification for production usage.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is now certified at EAL 4+ for the Operating System Protection Profile (OSPP). It's a process that has taken nearly two years since the RHEL 6 distribution was first released back in November of 2010.

RHEL 5 received its EAL 4+ certification back in June of 2007, nearly 18 months after the initial release of RHEL 5 in March of 2006.

"This is marks our 15th completed Common Criteria certification for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, earning Red Hat a place at the top of the list of the industry’s most certified operating systems," Paul Smith, vice president and general manager, Public Sector operations at Red Hat, said in a statement. "We’ve been deeply committed to security certifications so that customers can confidently turn to Red Hat for the expertise to deploy open source solutions at maximum security levels, and our work with Dell, HP, IBM and SGI on this certification reinforces that government customers can run Red Hat Enterprise Linux with confidence on a wide variety of hardware from many of the industry’s top providers."

2) Wayland 1.0

The move to a new alternative to X11 is now going to start getting real with the release of the Wayland 1.0 protocol this past week.

"As I've said before, 1.0 doesn't mean we're done or that the protocol can't move forward," Wayland developer Kristian Høgsberg wrote. "What it means, is that we're confident that the protocol we have now covers the basic features and that we can build whatever new functionality we need with and on top of 1.0."

3) Linux 3.7 Moving Forward

Linux creator Linus Torvalds pushed out the third release candidate in the Linux 3.7 release cycle, on Sunday. The third release candidate is following the normal cadence of approximately one release candidate per week following the code merge.

The biggest item for Linux 3.7 remains the unified approach to ARM. Instead of multiple ARM branches, Linux 3.7 will have one, making it easier to maintain and deploy.

Torvalds also used the rc3 release to let loose on light hearted rant about naming and in particular the name Linus.

"Christ people, some of you need to change your names," Torvalds wrote. "I'm used to there being multiple "David"s and "Peter"s etc, but there are three different Linus's in just this rc. People, people, I want to feel like the unique snowflake I am, not like just another anonymous guy in a crowd. I'm getting myself a broadsword." Linus "there can be only one" Torvalds

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.